Between the pacification of Tonkin in the late 1880s and the Nghe-Tinh Soviet Movement of 1930–31, the Thai Nguyen Rebellion was
the largest and most destructive anti-colonial uprising to occur in
French Indochina. On August 31, 1917, an eclectic band of political
prisoners, common criminals and mutinous prison guards seized the
Thai Nguyen Penitentiary, the largest penal institution in northern
Tonkin. From their base within the penitentiary, the rebels stormed
the provincial arsenal and captured a large cache of weapons which
they used to take control of the town. Anticipating a counterattack,
the rebels fortified the perimeter of the town, executed French officials and Vietnamese collaborators and issued a proclamation calling
for a general uprising against the colonial state. Although colonial
forces retook the town following five days of intense fighting, mopping-up campaigns in the surrounding countryside stretched on for
six months and led to hundreds of casualties on both sides.